Creamed clover honey

Creamed clover honey is really very easy to make in five minutes, in small quantities.

You could do it with a wooden spoon with a little elbow grease, an electric kitchen beater or hand drill, but I've burned both out when stirring the honey; it's viscous stuff and needs more power. More than your arm will provide too, unless it's only one or two pots.

Creamed honey like the one on the right is much softer and smoother; that on the left is from a eucalyptus tree and not clover; it's much darker and obviously still runny.

So, how do you turn runny honey that drips everywhere into the creamed stuff on the right? It's easy.

The difficulty with low density honeys from clover, jacaranda and orange blossom for example is that that they won't crystallise or set readily. And if you force it by putting them in the refrigerator you may get large unpleasant crystals.

It all has to do with the ratio of glucose to fructose which varies in every honey. The glucose is less soluble than the fructose, so when the former is preponderant, then the honey will tend to set.

If there's more fructose, then it will stay runny.

Honey is a supersaturated solution of these two sugars and a large number of literally dozens of other phytochemicals that give each jar its unique flavour. Plus the bees add certain substances too as they secrete it, and regurgitate it up from their honey stomachs. Gross!

Here's a bit of medical history, unrelated to creamed clover honey. Dr
William Castle, the physician who discovered 'intrinsic factor', vital
for the absorption of vitamin B12, without which we would die from
pernicious anaemia conducted a bizarre experiment. He swallowed raw beef
mince, vomited it up and fed it to ten patients with pernicious
anaemia. Ten control patients were fed straight beef. The group who ate
the vomited meat recovered from PA, proving the existence of a substance
secreted in the stomach without which we cannot absorbe B12. In similar
fashion, bees secrete a myriad of substances in their 'honey stomachs'
from which we can benefit. Current research is focusing on glucose
oxidase that produces hydrogen peroxide, methylglyoxal and defensin-1
which give honey its anti-microbial properties.1

Perhaps back in school science you grew crystals of alum or copper
sulphate from a supersaturated solution. In creaming honey you will use
the same principle, only a myriad of tiny seeds; that's what makes it so
smooth.

Unfortunately creaming honey is one way that some
commercial bottlers will deceive you; they heat their honey so that it's
easier to work with, but spoiling it in the process; then when it sets
it often will form large unpleasant crystals; that heating would certainly affect these special substances that make honey unique.

So they seed it
with a small amount of creamed honey, stir it in, and you will be none the
wiser that this is a highly processed food.

Yes, it takes more time but the way our grandparents did it, visiting the farmers' market and finding a small beekeeper is the way to better health; better still make own creamed clover honey, and grow your own kale and lima beans.

But to get back to your creamed clover honey; if you want a solid honey that will not run off the toast and drip down to your elbows like watermelon juice then the trick is to process it yourself.

First go out and buy a couple bottles of high quality raw honey. It's all a bit messy so you might as well do a few jars at a time.

Then purchase a bottle of creamed 'raw' honey; not the heated stuff that the commercial bottlers use. This you need do only once, so get the best you can find; it will be expensive; from here on you will use your own creamed honey to seed the next set of jars.

Pour say three bottles of your liquid clover honey, or orange blossom, or whatever, into a bowl; now add about 10% of that creamed honey that you've just bought; it's not critical how much exactly.

And then use one of the mixers that came with your electric kitchen appliance, on the lowest setting, to blend that creamed honey into the liquid stuff; just a few minutes. Pour it back into the bottles and put it on the shelf. Within a week you'll have your beautiful soft set honey.

Creamed clover honey

Creamed clover honey or any other for that matter just requires some seeding material and a drill press if you want to do it in larger quantities.

When you've burned out a few kitchen electric mixers, then give thought to doing this on a larger scale with a more powerful machine.

Whilst I'm not expecting many homes to have a large and powerful drill press like this one, if you are moving into the commercial realm then you will certainly need a machine that can produce a good turnover without overheating.

I can do 150 pounds in a couple hours, so this drill has paid for itself; you can't do this with a small kitchen appliance or garage drill.

I made a simple paddle out of a length of threaded rod, two nuts and a piece of aluminium conduit that I twisted slightly to increase the beating effect. Make sure there's at least 30mm between the end of the blade and the sides of the bucket. ie. 60mm less than the diameter when making your creamed clover honey.

Add roughly one jar of creamed honey from your stock to about ten in a large plastic bucket, and beat it for a few minutes.

If you want to incorporate a lot of air into the mixture, making it lighter still, then you will need to beat it for much longer; I couldn't be bothered but you will get a better return because you are now selling air!

Pour your raw honey into the bucket, add the seed honey, and beat for one or two minutes, just to distribute the seeds through the liquid.

Some of our best honey comes in when trees from our citrus fruit list are in flower. The tantalizing hint of phytochemicals like limonin that makes your lemon and lime so special comes through.

These were both bottled yesterday, the one on the right obviously the creamed honey. I can detect no difference in taste, but the one on the left will set into rock hard crystallised honey, but that on the right remains soft with a consistency like that of peanut butter. I'll try and remember to add photos of these same two bottles in a month's time.

It's really just a matter of personal taste. I refuse to heat either because of the unseen spoilage of the very special and virtually unique raw honey.

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